William Herschel

William Herschel (15 November 1738-25 August 1822), born Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, was a famous Hanoverian-British astronomer who served as the President of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1821 until his death in 1822. He was best-known for his discoveries of Uranus and infared radiation, and he used prisms and temperature measuring to assist him in his studies, for which he was knighted.

Biography
Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was born on 15 November 1738 in Hanover, Brunswick-Luneburg, Holy Roman Empire to a family of Lutheran Germans. His father Isaac Herschel was a member of the Hanover Military Band, and William and his brother Jacob became members of the band as well. The brothers fought at the Battle of Hastenbeck in 1757, and after the defeat there, Isaac sent them both to England. William was accused of desertion, but King George III of Britain would later absolve him of these accusations; while in England, he became a quick learner of English. Herschel wrote 24 symphonies and many concertos while he was in England, and he met amateur violinist John Michell, a natural philosopher and mathematician. Herschel decided to pursue a career in astronomy, and in 1781 he discovered a disk-like object in space, which he called the "Georgian star" in honor of his king; however, the name did not stick and was later changed to Uranus. In 1783, he introduced his sister Caroline Herschel to astronomy, and the two of them worked together. In 1789, he finished development of a 40-foot telescope that was used to discover the moons of Saturn. Herschel also discovered infared radiation on 11 February 1800 when a red filter that he used attracted lots of heat, and he decided that it was beyond the visible spectrum. Also, he discovered that coral was a living thing and not a plant, as it did not have the characteristics of a plant. In 1822, Herschel died at the age of 83, and his son John Herschel by his wife Mary Baldwin would be a polymath who discovered some more moons and investigated color blindness.